Public Art in Chicago: Chicago - Grant Park / Figure Fountains: Crane Girl, Fisher Boy, Dove Girl and Turtle Boy

Dove Girl

Four Figure Fountains:

Dove Girl, Turtle Boy, Crane Girl, Fisher Boy

- by Leonard Crunelle

On the north and south of the Clarence Buckingham Memorial Fountain are the rose gardens. These rose gardens have four circular fountains with bronze figures installed in the center of each

The South Rose Garden has Dove Girl and Turtle Boy

The North Rose Garden has Crane Girl and Fisher Boy

Location: Grant Park Rose Gardens
East of S. Columbus Dr. (301 E) north and south of E. Congress Pkwy. (500 S)
Chicago, IL 60605

Dove Girl, Turtle Boy, Crane Girl, Fisher Boy

Dove Girl, Crane Girl, Fisher Boy, and Turtel were commissioned by Humboldt Park and installed in 1909. The sculptures were originally displayed as plaster casts in an outdoor art exhibition in 1908. They were later cast in bronze and placed in the rose garden of Humboldt Park. In the early 1950s, vandals damaged the sculptures, and they were moved into storage. In 1964, they were installed in Grant Park's Rose Garden.

The sculptor Leonard Crunelle was known for sculpting children. He was born in France and worked as a coal miner in Decatur before becoming an assistant to Lorado Taft. He also created the Victory Monument on Martin Luther King Dr. in Bronzeville and the Heald Square Monument on Wacker Drive.

Dove Girl / South Rose Garden - Grant Park

Turtle Boy / South Rose Garden - Grant Park

Crane Girl / North Rose Garden - Grant Park

Fisher Boy / North Rose Garden - Grant Park

Full-sized plaster models of the sculptures were originally displayed in an outdoor art exhibit in Humboldt Park in 1908. The Chicago Tribune explained that the purpose of the exhibit was to “demonstrate the beauties and the wonderful possibilities of a skillful combination of landscape gardening and sculpture.” Jens Jensen, who is now recognized as the dean of the Prairie style in landscape architecture, placed the figures at the four corners of a rectangular reflecting pool in the center of the circular rose garden. The artworks were so well-liked within this setting, that the West Park Commissioners soon had them recast in bronze for permanent installation. In the 1960s, soon after the Daniel O. Flaherty Rose Garden was planted in Grant Park, the fountain figures were relocated to Chicago’s Front Yard. Leonard Crunelle (1872-1945), an artist especially well-known for sculpting figures of children, created the four fountain figures.

Leonard Crunelle was born in Pas de Calais, France in 1872. He emigrated to Brazil, Indiana, in 1882, then to Decatur, Illinois a few years later. He worked in the mines of Decatur until came to Chicago as a student and apprentice of famed sculptor Lorado Taft. He settled down in Chicago and lived here until he died in 1944, at the age of 72.